Digital Editions of EPW Books

Appeal for Donations to the Corpus of Sameeksha Trust

This is an appeal to the subscribers, contributors, advertisers and well-wishers of Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), published by Sameeksha Trust, a public charitable trust registered with the office of the Charity Commissioner, Mumbai, India. EPW has completed 50 years of publication. Details here.

You are here

C Niranjan Rao

As quantitative data regarding inventions is diffi cult to come by, an alternative presents itself in the form of patent data. While this is not a perfect indicator of inventions and hence the technological capability of a country, it comes close. This article examines long-term trends in patent applications in India from 1948 to 2010 and gives an insight into patenting activity in India.

The capacity of countries to take advantage of the patent system bears a relationship with their stage of development. This paper explores the relationship between economic development and domestic and foreign patenting behaviour. The study uses a unique data set covering 55 countries and 24 years. It determines the association of domestic patenting with gross domestic product per capita and openness to trade, and the association of foreign patenting with these variables and with foreign direct investment as a proportion of gdp.

The WTO has formally adopted a solution to the defects of Article 31 of the TRIPS agreement, which stipulates that compulsory licences are predominantly for domestic use and therefore creates a peculiar situation for countries with insufficient pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity. However, the solution seems intended more to ensure that not even a single tablet of drugs produced under this system escapes into the market and less to make medicines available to countries with limited manufacturing ability.

Geographical indications have turned out to be the most controversial of all the intellectual property rights included in the WTO agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The two most contentious issues concerning GIs are extension of enhanced protection to products other than wines and spirits and the multilateral system for notification and registration of geographical indications. This study is an attempt to understand these issues in the context of IndiaÃ¢Â?Â?s interest and a case study of Darjeeling tea.

The three amendments to the Indian Patents Act were made alongside intense debates which emphasised that with the rights of the patent holders strengthened under TRIPS, there is an urgent need to balance this situation with more effective instruments so as to ensure that the public interest issues, as for example, access to medicines at affordable prices are also addressed. The global community took a major step towards bringing about a balance through the 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. While the third amendment of the Indian Patents Act takes steps to address some of the more difficult issues in TRIPS, there remains a need to revisit the key provisions of the Patents Act keeping in view the imperatives of access to medicines.

The proposed third amendment to the 1970 Patent Act goes much further than required to fulfil India's WTO obligations and does not have provisions that are necessary to strike a balance between the rights and obligations of the patent holder. This article makes suggestions to redress the imbalances in the bill that is now under consideration.

This paper analyses the Indian seed system and raises questions about the need for developing countries - which are predominantly agricultural and where plant breeding is done by public agencies - to have plant variety protection (PVP). It also looks at the Plant Varieties Act in India, where a series of policy developments have opened up the domestic seed sector to large companies and foreign direct investment. The paper stresses the role of public sector investment in plant breeding that is not PVP-driven and acts as a counterbalance to expanding research activity by the private sector.

While the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the Uruguay Round has been controversial, Article 27 (3) (b) of this agreement is more so. It pertains to patenting of biotechnology inventions. The origin of this article may be traced to conventions in European countries, and also discuss the biotechnology patenting question under the 1970 Patent Act in India.

﻿Patent System and Pharmaceutical Sector Biswajit Dhar C Niranjan Rao ANALYSIS of the impact of changes in patent laws have acquired prominence in the context of the patent regime that the Uruguay Round of GATT is seeking to introduce. The volume of literature produced on the subject has been phenomenal which has contributed to the ongoing debate. But unfortunately there is also a flip side to the debate. Articles have been produced without adequate understanding of the terrain that is sought to be covered. Authors of such articles tend to take a predetermined position and then try to produce masses of data to overawe the uninitiated. The contribution by Prasad and Bhat (1993) forms a part of this category of articles. Right from the manner in which the problem is posed to the methodology adopted, nor. to speak of the inaccuracies in factual details and interpreta- tions, the article appears to be some what contrived. The intent of the authors may have been to express their support for the Dunkel proposals and to convey the message that India should not be afraid of the proposals. But even in doing so they should have made a more competent attempt at handling the complex of issues involved.

﻿Interpretation C Niranjan Rao The government's interpretation of the Dunkel draft goes completely against what it has been arguing in the negotiating group for five years. What happened to its arguments that trade and intellectual property are not related, that a higher level of patent protection distorts rather than promotes trade, that it will hinder technology transfer and so on?

﻿Complete Denial of Developing Countries' Interests Biswajit Dhar C Niranjan Rao The Dunkel draft on TRIPS is heavily biased in favour of the patentees. While their rights have been enlarged, their obligations have been considerably watered down. This marks a reversal of the spirit of the 70s when the issue in international negotiations was how to make technology transfer between the north and the south more equitable. The TRIPS negotiations have focused exclusively on the monopoly rights of patentees from developed countries and, in doing so, all the issues raised in the debates on the 'Code of Conduct for Transfer of Technology' and the 'Code of Conduct for Multinational Corporations' have been conveniently forgotten. The developing countries have to contend with an unequal world order. This is the most important message of the Dunkel draft on TRIPS.